Yes, always been able to do it as you describe. I also can take flat images at different angles and translate those into 3-D ‘images’ in my head. It’s been a useful skill for me but I am aware it’s not something everyone can do. I spent a lot of time sketching and modelling in card elements of our house conversion for my partner as she just couldn’t translate architectural drawings into what the outcome would be.

I meant to add above that claiming on the insurance was very straightforward initially but the increase in premiums post  event has been dramatic and if it happened again I think I would explore alternative arrangements first especially as ours was a visible exit of water and the guy who did the repair found it and fixed it within a couple of hours. The Severn Trent engineers had failed to find it in three visits.

Edit: If you turn the stopcock back on and place a screwdriver or similar to it and your ear on the end of that can you hear anything? Might just give you some idea if it is close to the tap?

Where is the meter? Two of our neighbours ( Severn Trent) and my father ( Southern water) have all had leaks right by the junction of the meter and the supply pipe. My dad’s was just after a meter change and all three were fixed at the water companies expense.

We, on the other hand, had a leak on a non metered joint supply, (ours got up to over 150l hour ) between the road and the property and ended up paying for it and claiming on the insurance. Galling since I had made numerous phone calls, had three site visits over nearly a year about a visible leak that Severn Trent said was a spring until they finally  fitted a temporary meter in the road to confirm. They then immediately served us with a section 75 notice to get it fixed within two weeks. This was on December 20th! We didn’t get charged for the water lost.

We had one at home as a kid to polish the quartz pebbles found on North Norfolk beaches- I spent hours combing Blakeney point for stones and found some really nice ones. As above, it takes days and is noisy- we had ours in the garage and you could hear it faintly in the house. The results were lovely but the polisher was probably used about ten times max and then left to be eventually thrown away about 20 years later.

Edit:

I have just remembered that I think my dad made his own with a spare motor he had at work, some pillow block bearings and steel rods. The container was bought from a lapidary supplier as was the grit

Less than filling a plastic bowl.

I would be very interested to know that if the next time you did the washing up using your method with a bowl collecting the water what quantity you ended up using. Try it and report back? Genuinely interested in the result.

If you hold a thing under a running tap, it also doesn’t get scratched by the sink, and after you’ve finished cleaning it, you can rinse it to get rid of the dirty water and soap

If I am reading this correctly this means that the tap is running continuously whilst washing? Surely this uses a lot of water and energy to heat it. I would have been told off for this as a kid, and having spent many weeks as a teenager ( formative years) on small boats washing up with the minimum of water was ingrained as we were the ones who had to carry all the water to fill the tanks. Same with brushing teeth, the tap is only running when cleaning the brush not during the brushing.

It’s a metal finishing and chrome plating company

We don’t have smart meters. We have different suppliers for gas and electricity. The gas suppliers have phoned us regularly for the last two years to get our meter changed as it is nearing the end of its life, and that we are obliged to have a smart replacement. Each time I tell them we don’t have a smart electricity meter and anyway it is with a different power company. the response so far has been ‘oh well the current meter will be ok for a while’. I guess at some stage we will get them changed but th woes outlined above are not encouraging.

Not for me, I have a cocoa intolerance so it would make me quite ill. I quite like the idea of caramel on the shortbread though

There is sailing on the Avon just north of Tewksbury, although it is river sailing rather than coastal or reservoir so something such as a Solo or Laser or smaller two person dinghy’s are preferable. As stated above the Malvern hills are a style of riding that doesn’t suit everyone although there is plenty of opportunity to get off the (well worn) beaten tracks on the ridge. Also FOD is less than an hour away. Ledbury is a much more interesting and vibrant place than Malvern these days but there is a wider range of housing in Malvern as it is a lot bigger.

Pick one where the motor that drives the cutters is at the end you hold rather than the cutting end.
Wielding a weight on the end of a long pole quickly becomes tiresome.

This. I am sure one of the reasons why I am currently recovering from a back problem was using one with all the weight at the top, lifting and twisting.

I happened to turn on the tv when the canoe cross was on yesterday Properly bonkers. Loved it

Barjo Engineering do a cage for the back of a Fabia estate . It’s nearly £1k though

Watching the windsurfing and they seem to float above the water

that’s because they are now foil windsurfers, on the overhead shots you can see the hydrofoil element under the water

Just watched the women’s rowing eight medal ceremony where Uk got bronze. What really impressed me was that  the Romanians who won gold had all raced in other boats at these games before competing in the eight, so much more effort over the week.

The known major  problem with Mk 7.5 Golf R’s is related to the water pump which is a leak rather than catastrophic failure so as long as you keep an eye on the fluid level it is unlikely to strand you. Batteries seem to last about four or five years so if you haven’t changed it yet that might be an issue. Another less common problems are with the DSG gearbox and the Haldex unit, both of which can be ameliorated by regular servicing. All of the above are expensive- the water pump is often around £1k for example, but your car is still eligible for the VW All in cover- 2 years services, 2 years warranty and two years recovery for about £800 although they often have deals on.

I have a similar age Golf and intend to keep it. Mk. 8 Golf R’s are anecdotally much more glitchy, mostly with their software like most MBQ EVO VAG products on that platform

Are the Germans and Dutch maybe like Scotland and England ?

Having spent some time in Holland in the late 80’s/early ‘90’s unless things have changed, the Dutch I met didn’t in general like the Germans much.

How big is the space you are filling with the drawers? What are the drawer fronts going to be made from? You might find 12mm ply suitable or possibly even 15mm MDF. Jointing 2×4 to make a suitable frame would probably involve more work in the long run depending on the size of the whole project

I always carry a map and compass, even on walks I have done before, but mostly use Memory Map on my phone although I just  every now and again rather than constantly checking. I was given MM 1:25000 for the whole UK as a present and downloaded the whole dataset onto the phone so it doesn’t rely on a mobile signal, just GPS. I like to use maps before a walk as I find it much easier to orient myself and work out a route on paper.

Heard someone from Horse and Hound magazine on the radio earlier

I think that was the same interview that I listened to, and I had a similar reaction. What she also said is that the FEI ‘ should have sat on it till after the olympics’ or word to that effect because of the timing. Hmmm

Peas

Bread rolls

Bread

Vegetable Lasagna made by my partner-the best quick meal for when we come home late

Chicken casserole-second best quick meal

ircFull Member
This is a good summary.

In your opinion, my opinion would be to treat most of the verbiage in the spectator to be rather biased against green issues

No work today
( thanks Crowdstrike)

I can’t log onto EMIS, so it looks like it is is going to be a bad day for many patients doctors and admin staff in GP practices this morning. The NHS app will also have limited access to patient data

In what way is this good news? Oh, and that link is behind a paywall. Do you pay to read the Telegraph? A suspended sentence would have been more appropriate 

Not removed, but on an internal flight between Newquay airport and St. Mary’s on Scilly, I was called into security office whilst sitting in the departure lounge and asked to explain what was in my shoes packed in the hold luggage before they were going to remove them. I suddenly remembered that my partner had asked me to pack some mixed herbs she had decanted into little foil wraps and a few stock cubes in their wrappings ( we were self catering)  and I had shoved them at the bottom of the shoes. I duly opened one of each and was allowed to keep them. We now buy herbs and stock cubes at St. Mary’s.

Interesting use of statistics Ernie, if you add the ‘pleased’ and ‘not bothered either way’ that rises to 57%so you could argue that more than half who responded were not unhappy with Labour winning.

Another reason for a lower turnout, not unexpected.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/08/voter-id-rule-may-have-stopped-400000-taking-part-in-uk-election-poll-suggests

Tactical voting inevitably skewed the overall percentages, probably not by much, but I am sure that quite a few Labour supporters voted for other parties either to get the Tories out or because they recognised the candidate as a potentially good constituency MP. It does work both ways as I am aware so some of their votes would have come from other parties but it might explain some of the anomalies between national polling and actual turnout.

If you think that there’s any chance that either or both of your children will carry on camping (!) it may be worth buying a good quality one and take care of it. I have a MacPac tent that I bought in 1995 that was at the top and of my budget at the time, I used it every day for four months on a round the world trip and a few times each year ever since. It’s still waterproof and structurally sound. It’s always stored bone dry and loosely packed in a big lightproof bag in the loft.

So her seat was lost to Labour, Johnson’s old seat went to Labour ( just), May’s old seat went to Liberal Democrat. Another fact that my brother told me was that there are now no Tory mp’s in Oxfordshire which he thinks is first since the 1770’s. Quite astonishing

Nothing shows my age more than someone describing a 50” television as ‘small’

Our ‘big’ 42” television is mounted on a pull out bracket that is rated  at about 10 times its weight, mostly because the distance I wanted it to come out. It was about £45 IIRC in 2018

For the first time in my life, and I have voted in every election since 1982, I am  represented in parliament by an MP that I voted for. I am very pleased.

I imagine a lot of campaigning for improving the water quality of the Wye swayed voters there

it had a part, but Wiggin being an arrogant and quite unpopular man locally also played a part. And, in all honesty, the 8000 votes for the Reform candidate probably did for him in the end

Farage has said he’s been invited on Kuenssburg’s program tomorrow (again) but is refusing until ‘the BBC apologies for dishonest audience’ last night. It’s playing to his base again isn’t it, he just can’t cope with robust criticism. Even at the most positive polling for Reform, four in five people won’t support him yet any situation where he’s not given an easy ride is ‘biased’

get an inspection done by the AA/RAC or similar. Not cheap, but well worth it*

I know that I was probably unlucky but…

The only time that I’ve had an RAC inspection on a private sale second hand car, it was given a clean bill of health and yet broke down driving it home. I had to get it taken to a garage by the RAC and it had about £800 of repairs ( in 1996). The RAC refused any compensation or liability as they said it had passed all their tests and the failure- a high pressure hydraulic pipe in the suspension system of a Citroen BX- could not have been foreseen. So treat any report as a bit like an MOT- only as good as the tester for the visual condition on that day

Seen on twitter

Just heard someone on the radio from Reform saying there’s no room for racists in the party. Is there now a waiting list then?

According to someone who has contacted him, he is very much a part time actor and he wasn’t employed by C4.

Not yet clear if he was paid by someone to act as he did or whether it’s his real self, and he just also happens to be an actor.

My leaflet count so far is at 4

Having been in a safe Tory seat for 30 years , 23 of them with the same MP, and getting nothing at each election for at least two decades, we have had four visits at the door by Green supporters- not directly canvassing in each case, six or eight Green leaflets two of which came in the post, two leaflets from the Torys and one each from Labour, Lib Dem’s and Reform, all via the postman.
I am guessing that the sudden influx is because this is one of the Greens target seats.
by far the least well produced was the Reform one, the second Tory one was in a mock newspaper format which had pictures of the candidate with Johnson amongst all the usual guff  but not Sunak which I thought was revealing.

Last two jobs with company cars would have laughed me out of the tyre shop if I’d tried getting new tyres at 2.7mm.

To be honest I can’t see what relevance a lease company’ s opinion would have on a debate on whether it is sensible to change tyres at 3mm? Their only interest is likely to be saving money not safety.

My nephew was told to carry on driving on tyres which were down to the cords on the inside edges by his lease company as the vehicle was going to be returned in a couple of months time. He refused and they eventually gave in and paid. This was in May of this year

Tomato ketchup-I like tomatoes in every other form ( well apart from fried tomatoes obvs)

Buying clothes to be fashionable- I can’t understand how much money people are willing to spend on ‘ designer’ jeans for example

Eating outdoors, except when out on a walk, or on a ride, or whilst sailing etc. I have never enjoyed picnics or barbecues  because they are outdoors, but enjoyed the food or company, which would have been just as good indoors.

Sunbathing

If the tyres have 1.6mm on them, they are legal, and that’s that.

There is a difference between legal and safe in all conditions as well outlined by a number of posts above.

Why take the risk? As an answer to the original question, I would be comfortable driving on the tyres for the journey suggested but would  be looking to change them quite soon.

I have had MOT advisories on tyres

Nearside Front Tyre worn close to legal limit/worn on edge 3mm (5.2.3 (e))

I changed them at about 2.5mm before the autumn that same year. In Germany the recommendation is to change at 3mm